


Unveiled

by rodabonor



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Choking, Face Punching, Face Slapping, Kissing, M/M, Supernatural Elements, They Flip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:16:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rodabonor/pseuds/rodabonor
Summary: “Let me cut you a deal,” Will said. “I convince you that I know your nature well enough to understand you, and you give me something in return.”“A bargain with the devil?” Hannibal smiled. “I suppose you will want my immortal soul.”Hannibal meets a stranger in a bar who claims to be the devil. He just might believe it.





	1. Chapter 1

The bar was far from upscale, but it served decent wine and had a steady flow of non-regular customers, making it a suitable hunting ground. Hannibal had been perched at the edge of his seat like a bird of prey when he felt it: the incongruent scent of motor oil and gunpowder, carried on a gust of cold wind.

He turned his head and found that a man was seated in the bar stool next to his. Moments ago, Hannibal had been the only one seated at the bar. He had heard no footsteps. He had seen nothing in the periphery of his vision. Yet here this stranger was, settled into his chair like he’d been there all night.

The man appeared to be quite a bit younger than Hannibal, but there were still shallow lines carved around his mouth and a stitch of wrinkled skin between his eyebrows. His eyes were ringed with bruised lavender and dark hair coiled around his stubbled jaw. Hannibal thought he looked terribly pale, but it was not the ashen pallor of sickness. In the low light of the room, the man rather looked like an ancient Greek statue, scrubbed clean by the erosion of time.

Hannibal averted his gaze as the man spoke to the bartender, though he couldn’t help but pick his voice out in the murmur of the crowd. It was steady and smooth like running water. He listened as the bartender rattled off their selection of whiskey, and felt a faint pull of approval when the man ordered a glass of one of their finer options.

His approval was cut short when the man proceeded to put ice in his 30 year old single malt. Hannibal hid his frown behind his wine glass.

“Let’s not be judgmental,” the man said, smiling faintly. “To each his own and all that.”

Hannibal stiffened, wondering if the man had truly addressed him. He would have had to; there was no one else within hearing distance. Displeased with his evident lack of subtlety, Hannibal inclined his head.

“Of course. My apologies. It wasn’t my intention to be rude.”

“I believe you,” the man glanced at Hannibal’s almost empty glass of red wine. “Buy you another?”

A little mystified, Hannibal nevertheless nodded. “If you like.”

The man called the bartender over again and told him to get Hannibal another of what he was having. Wine was poured and paid for in cash.

“Thank you,” Hannibal said. “You reward rudeness with kindness.”

“I don’t know about that. Buying someone a drink is usually pretext.” The man’s voice held the cadence of a smirk. “More importantly, it’s establishing a socially accepted power dynamic between strangers. There are those who would say you owe me something in return now.”

“I’m under no obligation to do anything. I could simply ignore you.”

“You could. But you don’t want to be rude.” 

Hannibal was torn between affront and amusement. “What do you suggest I owe you?” 

“The pleasure of your company,” the man said. “To be honest, I was mostly hoping for an opportunity to offer you mine. You seemed lonely.”

“I assure you, I appreciate my own good company.” Hannibal gave a tight-lipped smile. “Although I don’t mind sharing it. My name is Hannibal.” 

He stretched out his hand and the man took it, shaking it once. “Pleasure,” he said. Then his eyes narrowed, like he was considering something. “Call me Will,” he said at last with an air of finality.

“Is there a reason you won’t give me your real name?”

“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Hannibal tipped his head, reluctantly intrigued. “I think you’ll find I have an open mind.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Will fell into thoughtful silence, tapping his finger against the edge of his glass. “Would you say you’re familiar with the bible?”

Hannibal blinked. “Yes.”

“What does ‘the accuser’ tell you?”

Hannibal blinked again, then resisted the urge to raise a skeptical brow. He schooled his features. 

“Do you mean to tell me that you are the devil, Will?”

“Yeah. Do you believe it?”

Hannibal considered it for a moment. He had always had a fanciful streak that was inclined to believe the unbelievable, but this was not a matter to be taken lightly. He studied Will’s face, searching for signs of humor. He did not find any.

“If you truly are the devil, should you not prove it?”

“Why should I prove anything to you?”

“If you want me to believe you, that would be the wise course of action.”

“How do I prove I’m the devil?”

“You ought to be bestowed with supernatural powers,” Hannibal said. “Perhaps mind reading or communication with the spirit world. Levitation. Such things.”

Will’s mouth twitched. “You didn’t get any of that from the holy scripture. That’s horror movie stuff. And funfair fortune tellers. But sure.” He straightened in his seat. “Just give me a moment.”

Will closed his eyes and started rubbing his temples with his fingertips. His face twisted into a frown of concentration. 

“You’ve suffered a terrible loss,” he started. “I'm sensing a female presence. The letter N. Or is it M? Yes, it's getting clearer now. I can feel her all around us already. Your bond must have been strong.”

Hannibal felt an unexpected twinge of disappointment. “Parlor tricks,” he stated. “Were you angling for my mother? I suppose I’m old enough that her death is not entirely inconceivable.”

Will let his hands drop and grinned wide, exposing the glimmering pearl necklace of his teeth.

“I can read your palm too. And I know I’ve got a Tarot deck lying around somewhere. Have you lost anything recently?”

“I have. A set of cufflinks went missing the other day. I wore them to work and took them off at home. They are not where they’re supposed to be.”

“Your master bedroom has an adjoining bathroom. Look under the sink.”

Hannibal gave a slight smile. “Are your psychic abilities telling you they’re there?”

“Nope, just common sense,” Will took a swig of his whiskey. “You might’ve taken them off in the bathroom, put them on the sink and accidentally knocked them to the floor.”

“Still you knew I had a master bedroom with an adjoining bathroom.”

“Guesswork. You’re obviously loaded, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

Hannibal lowered his gaze to his glass of wine, amused despite himself. He figured Will – or whatever his name was – was mostly trying to be friendly, even though he had an odd sense of humor. Hannibal couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy his company, strange as it was.

Briefly, he considered the possibility that Will was mentally unstable and thus potentially dangerous. But Hannibal rarely feared for his own safety, and was a privilege he always made sure to enjoy.

Putting his glass down on the countertop, he turned to Will again. 

“If you don’t mind my asking, what brings the son of dawn to a bar in Baltimore? I imagine there are more exciting places to be.” 

Will shrugged. “I have to be somewhere. There are always more exciting places to be. What brings you here, all alone on a Tuesday night? This doesn’t really seem like your kind of crowd. Or your kind of anything.”

“Every once in a while, I like to break my routine by trying something different. If I were mainly concerned with the quality of food and drink, I would have remained at home. I go out for the ambiance. The look and feel of a place and its visitors.”

Will watched him for a moment, gaze searching to the point where it was intrusive. He sipped his whiskey, holding the thin-walled glass between finely boned fingers. Hannibal noticed, for the first time, that his nails were tinted lilac, as though his fingers were very cold or very bruised. Like the dark circles under his eyes, they stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin.

“You’re not just enjoying the ambiance,” Will finally said. “I’ve been watching you tonight. You’re in pursuit.”

“What am I pursuing?”

“A midnight snack.”

Hannibal was momentarily stunned into silence. Unease slid through his center like a heated blade. He wondered if it might have been a joke he failed to understand, but he doubted it. Nothing in Will’s tone suggested he had been anything other than serious, and no matter how he turned the words over in his head he could not make them mean anything other than what he feared they meant.

“Don’t worry,” Will said. A smile split his face, slow and steady like a tear in a pantyhose. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you are referring to.”

“Thought you might say that. Shame. I know what I’m seeing. I can tell what you are.” An odd sort of fondness softened Will’s smile. “Takes one to know one, as they say. I can sense a kindred spirit from miles away.”

“Kindred spirit? Being likened to the devil is not very flattering, Will.”

“I’m a son of God. Divinity invested with power, grace and beauty. How could it not be flattering?”

“That is very silver-tongued of you,” Hannibal forced a mild smile. “Perhaps serpent-tongued would be more appropriate.”

“Right. Is that how I should’ve approached you? Slithering on my belly with an apple in my jaws? You’d have to believed me then, I suppose.” Will wetted his lips. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything as appealing as the fruit of knowledge to tempt you with. That ship has sailed.”

“You claim to know what I am. If so, you should be able to look into my heart and find my deepest, darkest desires.”

“I wouldn’t have to look very hard. You want what everybody else wants. To be understood.” Will twirled his glass in his hands. The ice clinked like wind chimes. “To be fair, I could probably give that to you. I already gave you a preview.”

Hannibal said nothing. He followed the soft lines of Will’s face with his eyes and thought, idly, that he would use charcoal if he ever were to draw him. No madness lurked in his even features, but there was an undercurrent of something decidedly unnatural there. Hannibal imagined carving it out with the needle-sharp tip of his pencil and smudging it with his fingertip, marking them both with it.

“Let me cut you a deal,” Will said. “I convince you that I know your nature well enough to understand you, and you give me something in return.” 

“A bargain with the devil?” Hannibal smiled. “I suppose you will want my immortal soul.”

Will shook his head, an amused look on his face. “No, thanks. I have plenty of those. But maybe you buy the next round? This place is expensive as hell.”

Hannibal released a short breath that might have passed for a laugh at Will’s choice of words and the sheer oddity of their encounter. Yet he couldn’t help his mounting curiosity. Faith had always come him with the effortlessness of a bodily function, never flickering or stranding him on the shores of doubt. He did not struggle with the notion of evil in the world because he was in motion with that evil, and God’s nature had made sense to him when little else did. A small part of him rebelled against the possibility that Will was speaking the truth, but in light of his intimate bond with God, it did not seem so impossible that he should come across some incarnation of the devil. 

In the words of Will himself, he had to be somewhere. Why not here? 

“Fine,” Hannibal said. “I accept your terms. Go ahead.”

Will looked into his almost empty glass of whiskey, swirling the watered-down fluid and studying it with an attentiveness that reminded Hannibal of those who read tea leaves. He did not look at Hannibal as he spoke.

“People often sense that something is off about you, but they can’t imagine the extent of your depravity. Those who have been forced to face it are tempted to label you evil. More than once, they have thought of you as a psychopath, but that honestly isn’t quite fair.” Will spoke evenly and without hesitation. “You certainly have what is considered psychopathic traits, but you can’t be reduced to a set of criteria in the DSM-5.” 

Will glanced his way and smiled. “That should appeal to your narcissism. Still, it’s entirely true. Not that you didn’t already know that.”

Hannibal sat quiet, enraptured by Will’s words. Will continued. “You don’t eat people for the thrill of it. Not anymore, at least. It’s a mundane task, because they’re livestock. Stripped of their humanity through their discourtesy, their crudeness, their ugliness. You are human, but you are better than they are, so they must be one step below you. Subhuman. They are to you what you are to me, I guess.”

Hannibal swallowed. “Then you suggest I have a sort of God complex,” he surmised. “I certainly sound like a psychopath. At the very least, I sound arrogant and cruel. Callous.”

“You’re not callous,” Will said. “You know love and self-sacrifice. You even know regret. Your empathy is rare, but it’s there nevertheless. Glimmers for those who deserve it. For your M, especially. We both know I’m not talking about your mother.”

Something simultaneously old and young stirred inside of Hannibal. Out of habit, he let his face set until it showed nothing at all. Will regarded him quietly with kind eyes, setting his glass down on the scarred wood of the counter.

“We aren’t so different. I know love and regret. More than anyone, I understand alienation. If you’re familiar with the bible, you should know what I mean.”

“Satan’s fall from heaven entailed suffering on a cosmic scale. The woes of a mortal life could never compare to those of a divine creature’s existence.”

“I think our lord and savior Jesus Christ would disagree.”

Hannibal sat mute and still. It was not that Will had offered any new insights. On the contrary, he had given Hannibal exactly what he promised: understanding, plain and simple. Hannibal had not expected to feel moved by it, but the notion of having someone truly recognize him for what he was instilled in him an unexpected and overwhelming relief, like a downpour in a desert. He was soaked and flooded with it.

Forcing himself to turn away from Will, he gestured for the bartender to come over. He ordered another round and paid with hands that were remarkably steady. As they sat in silence nursing their respective drinks, they steeped in an odd sort of silence. It was not truly uncomfortable, but it waited to be broken. Hannibal finally budged.

“Why me?”

The question was asked quietly, not quite timidly, but almost. Will’s eyes softened. “Everyone deserves a little understanding,” he said. “I meant it as a gift. Not mockery.”

“Was the apple a gift?”

“Sure. Among other things.”

“Humanity might have preferred ignorance.”

“You wouldn’t have.” Will huffed. “If you had been in that stupid garden, I wouldn’t have had to talk you into anything. You’d have just taken the damn fruit of your own volition. I like that.” He paused. “That’s why, maybe. Why you.”

Hannibal didn’t quite know what to say to that. He lowered his gaze and took a sip of his wine. He tried to savor it, and found he couldn’t. This struck him as exceptional.

Will reached for Hannibal hand where it drooped like a wilted flower on the countertop, touching it with his fingertips. It was not a particularly invasive touch, but it felt strikingly intimate.

“If my gift wasn’t well-received, there are other temptations I can think of,” Will said, the corners of his mouth lifting. “You did just accept a drink from a dark, handsome stranger. The script is laid out to us. We could act it out and leave it at that, if you prefer.”

Hannibal looked down at Will’s hand where it curved over his. It wasn’t cold, despite the mottled blues and purples that stained his fingertips. It was warm and soft with palms that were just a little bit calloused, as though he were used to working with his hands.

“Do I have to choose?” Hannibal asked. “Perhaps I would like everything you have to offer.”

Will paused and his smile widened. “Greedy,” he said, approval thick in his voice. Then he cupped Hannibal’s face, not quite touching, but framing it between his hands like a painting. Hannibal closed his eyes and waited. 

At first, Will kissed him like a bride at the altar: a brief press of lips against lips. Then his tongue slid along the seam of Hannibal's mouth and Hannibal fell into the kiss, helplessly, like falling into a fit of laughter or a coma. Like any other kiss, it had the intuitive quality of a composition in progress. Like no other kiss, it had desire sliding hot down Hannibal’s spine. Underneath the sour note of whiskey, Will tasted like the white, hard flesh of a green apple, and Hannibal wanted to sink his teeth into it. He wanted to taste Will everywhere.

When Will pulled back, his eyes were the shimmery black of velvet rubbed against the grain. One of his hands cradled the base of Hannibal’s skull, gentle yet firm, like he was holding a newborn.

“Take me home?” Will said. “I want to know if I was right about the cufflinks.”

Hannibal nodded. He wondered if Eve had felt what he felt; strangely compelled, a little dazed but entirely present, entirely in control. Maybe for the first time. An unveiling of psyche, and thus of the world.

“Then what?” he asked Will.

Will smiled. The shadows behind his eyes shifted. “Then, perhaps, I will take you home.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: violent sex. It's fully consensual, they're both into it and honestly it's still kind of fluffy somehow, but I still feel like I should put a warning here. The tags are also updated, so check those out. Thanks for reading this story!

Touching Will was like experiencing synesthesia, a brief, jarring collision of visions and smells and sounds. The slick shine of a polished gun flashed before Hannibal’s eyes when he brushed his fingers against the palm of Will’s hand. Behind his ear: the faint sound of shrill screaming. At the back of his neck: the burnt, sweet smell of an overheated engine. A sky devoid of clouds when they were hip to hip, red, setting suns when their lips met. The sense of falling and falling and falling and then the taste of asphalt and earth tucked behind Hannibal’s teeth, black feathers against never-ending blue. Everything high contrast, colors over saturated.

Hannibal pushed Will up against his bedroom door, delighting in his playful squirming and the seeking little thrusts of his hips, the way he clung to his shoulders like Hannibal was the only thing holding him up. Will’s kisses were quick and hard and impatient, but Hannibal slid his hands into Will’s hair and held him in place so he could kiss him slowly, savoring the kisses like he had tried to savor his wine. 

Wrapped up in Hannibal’s arms like this, Will felt strikingly human. Solid and substantial and real; a beautiful man with nothing otherworldly lurking underneath. 

Hannibal thought that perhaps he was foolish to trust that Will had been telling him the truth, but he couldn’t bring himself to truly disbelieve him. He comforted himself with the idea that if Will was not who he said he was, Hannibal could kill him and rid himself of the threat he posed. He would strangle him, perhaps – a method Hannibal rarely employed for its intimacy. He’d watch the light drain from Will’s eyes and the pallor of his skin grow rosy and it wouldn’t be an entirely displeasing end to a truly unusual night.

Will leaned his head back against the door, eyes still closed from kissing. An easy smile played on his lips. “I’ve thought about your dick in me ever since you sneered at me for putting ice in my whiskey,” he said. “please say you’ll fuck me.”

Hannibal paused. “I’m afraid I don’t have any lubricant on hand.”

“Sure you do.” Will glanced to the bedside table. Hannibal followed his line of sight and found an unfamiliar bottle sitting on top of it. 

Hannibal huffed, amused, before surging forward to capture Will’s mouth in another kiss. He let his hands slide under Will’s soft flannel shirt, stroking along his back until he got beneath the waistband of his underwear. The supple, rounded flesh there felt like a perfect fit in Hannibal’s hands and he squeezed once, making Will buck against him and moan into their kiss.

For a moment, Hannibal thought Will’s tongue stretched too far, twisting and tangling in his in ways it should not be able to. But it might have been his imagination or the gentle fog of inebriation. Under regular circumstances, Hannibal rarely had enough alcohol for his senses to be dulled, but he could tell that they were now, if only slightly. Will had captured his attention and left him just a little reckless, inspiring in him an urge to do what he normally did not. 

Hannibal released Will for long enough that they could undress. They fumbled with buttons and zippers while stumbling towards the bed, stopping once or twice to steal a few more kisses. Will’s mouth was so soft and warm and pliant. Hannibal couldn’t get enough of it. There was a trail of clothes on the floor when the back of Will’s knees hit the bed and Hannibal lowered them both down on top of it, slotting his thigh between Will’s thighs, pressing their chests together.

“Have you had sex with a man before?” Will asked.

“No.”

“Ever engaged in sodomy?”

There was a sarcastic slant to the last word. Hannibal raised his eyebrows and snorted softly.

“No. I have quite little sexual experience.”

“Then I think we should fix that.” Will wriggled out from under him and got on his elbows and knees, glancing at Hannibal over his shoulder. “First you fuck me, then I fuck you. How’s that sound?”

Hannibal studied Will for a moment, watching the way his features were smoothed out with tranquil pleasure. His half-lidded eyes were a glittering black, gateways into something great and unknown. He was beautiful the same way something poisonous in nature is beautiful. Like the view from the edge of a very steep cliff. 

“It sounds positively decadent,” Hannibal finally said.

Will smiled broadly. “I thought so.” He nodded towards the bedside table. “Get the lube.”

Hannibal reached over and picked up the bottle, setting it down beside him on the bed. Then he kneeled behind Will and spread his cheeks, running his thumb over his hole. Will shivered. His hole twitched. Hannibal thought of Will’s mouth, the warm, wet yield of it, and pushed his dry thumb a little firmer against the tight clench of muscle. It was far too inviting, the idea of all that gripping heat. 

After slicking his fingers, Hannibal circled them around the small opening until the skin glistened. Will felt startlingly warm and almost impossibly soft when he eased one finger inside. He wanted to reach deeper until he felt Will everywhere, fingers tangled up in his smooth insides. He wanted to peel back skin and flesh and feel the stuttering rhythm of Will’s beating heart. Briefly, he wondered what sounds and smells and pieces of fragmented images would present themselves if he touched him there, at his very core.

He only realized he was two fingers in and working them a touch too roughly when Will’s moaning was cut short by a small cry of pain. Hannibal slowed his pace, a little disturbed at how distracted he had been by his reveries, and leaned down to make a hushing sound into Will’s hair. 

“My mistake. I’m sorry.”

Will shifted, making an indecipherable sound. “You don’t think I can take it?”

“I wouldn’t know, would I? Your kind is alien to me. I don’t suppose this your true form.” 

“No. Strictly speaking, I don’t have a form. It’s kind of misleading to speak of me as an ‘I’ in the first place.” Will shrugged from his awkward position. “Let’s not talk metaphysics while you’re knuckle-deep in my ass. Unless there’s something about me you’d like to change?”

The mere thought was strangely unsettling. Hannibal shook his head. “You look beautiful,” he said. Then he eased his fingers almost all the way out and carefully pressed back in with three fingers, making Will twitch and moan. “Are you satisfied with what this form has to offer?”

“I’m satisfied with what you have to offer to it.” Will released an uneven breath. “I’m ready, you don’t have to—you should fuck me now.”

Hannibal made a humming sound of consideration and let his free hand slide down Will’s belly until he felt the hard, thick line of his cock, hanging heavy between his legs. 

“But I’m enjoying myself,” he said and wrapped his hand around Will’s cock, stroking it once, slow and firm. A little _oh_ escaped Will’s lips, quiet and soft and almost sweet. “What if I would rather have you like this? I could do this all night, I think.”

“I couldn’t,” Will said. He writhed, still impaled on Hannibal’s fingers, and panted into the sheets. It was a strange thought, to have an ancient being of unimaginable power squirming and moaning beneath him, turned malleable with desire in Hannibal’s hands.

“Impatient,” Hannibal said, unable to keep his approval out of his voice. “I suppose I better give you what you want, then.” 

Relishing Will’s little moan of relief, Hannibal removed his fingers and slicked his cock with lube. Will was sagging, all ragdoll-slump, like his legs could no longer hold his weight. Hannibal gripped Will’s hips to hoist him up properly onto his knees, and seconds later, he had lined up his cock and started sinking into silky heat. Will felt tighter than Hannibal’s previous partners, hotter, almost scorching. His skin was remarkably pale, except where they joined. There, he was the color of his kiss-swollen lips, and just as yielding, just as silky-soft and greedy.

Will’s fingers knotted into the sheets as he struggled to find purchase, feet slipping over the sheets. Hannibal kept his grip on his hips tight and started pushing into him with short, hard thrusts, pulling Will back on his cock over and over until pleasure sizzled and crackled through him. Will didn’t stop him. He didn’t do anything but take it, gasping and trembling just slightly in Hannibal’s grasp, his skin slick with a thin coating of sweat.

“Aah,” Will cried out at a particularly vicious thrust, voice curving up towards the end. It was a familiar sound to Hannibal; the very same moan tinted with discomfort that had snapped him into the realization that he was too rough before. Closing his eyes and ignoring the tug of heat in his belly, he let everything loosen and halt, fingers unfurling, pace slowing. 

Will immediately looked back at him, eyes dark and searching. “What’re you doing?”

“Quitting while I’m ahead. I’m not about to hurt you, Will.” 

Hannibal found the idea genuinely unappealing – inflicting suffering in such a base way, far removed from deliberate design. Will blinked, a smile tugging ever so slightly at the corners of his mouth.

“Hurt me,” he echoed, bemused. “You can’t really do that, Hannibal. Honestly, what do you expect?” 

“I have no expectations. Like I said, you are entirely alien to me. I listen for cues.”

“And these cues tell you that you’re hurting me.”

“Aren’t I?”

“My body responds to stimuli the same way any other body does. But that’s it. You can’t truly hurt me in any way that matters, no matter what you do.” Will turned back again, dropping his head on his crossed arms. “Feel free to give it your best, though. I’d look pretty if I were a little roughed up, I think.”

Hannibal looked down at the messy curls at the back of Will’s head and the sinuous line of his spine. He experienced a rare moment of mental conflict.

“What do you gain from it, Will?”

“You already know. We’re just alike.” Hannibal couldn’t see as much as hear Will smiling. “I get to satisfy my curiosity, and so do you. Now stop holding back.”

Hannibal recalled his fleeting thought of killing Will. His hand around the long column of his neck, squeezing down until his pale skin was no longer pale, until broken blood vessels zigzagged across the whites of his eyes like the lines on a map. 

In quick succession, Hannibal eased out, turned Will onto his back and pinned him with a hand around his throat. He parted Will’s legs with his other hand and shoved back inside him with a stifled groan. Will’s eyes flew open, his mouth parted on a strangled cry and then Hannibal didn’t care what Will was or was not, didn’t truly care about anything beyond the narrow scope of his own pleasure, the selfish greed he usually tamped down bubbling up into sharp thrusts of his hips and an almost rhythmical squeeze of his hand.

“Oh, God, yes,” Hannibal heard through the blood thrumming in his ears, and he wasn’t even quite sure who said it, but he did hear Will laugh: a quick, breathless sound that was human yet layered over something else. Like before, Hannibal yearned to catch another glimpse of that Other, wishing for Will to bare more of the strange, inner workings of himself. 

Driven by this idea, Hannibal released his grip on Will’s throat and raised his hand to slap him across the face. Will’s head snapped to the side, eyes wide and mouth slack, and the way he tensed with the impact made him clench almost painfully around the length of Hannibal’s cock. They both groaned, breaths coming in quick gasps.

“Would I truly never be able to break you?” Hannibal asked, a little winded from the force of his want. 

“Never,” Will said. “I don’t know if that makes me a better or a worse toy to you. Killing is what gets you going, not senseless acts of sadism.”

“My sadism is never senseless.”

“No.” Will blinked slowly, like a pleased cat. “Hit me again.”

The side of Will’s face already burned red with Hannibal’s slap. His white, swan-like neck was ringed with red that would darken into a mottled purple. Hannibal imagined the blush on his cheek spreading over the rest of his face, the pattern of bruises that might follow – all different, distorted versions of his hand print.

Hannibal slapped him again, making Will’s teeth pierce the inside of his cheek. Blood outlined his teeth and painted them pink; Hannibal saw it in the half-snarl, half-smile Will flashed him. Hannibal slapped him again and again and then he balled his hand into a fist and struck Will hard enough to inflict real damage. He felt Will’s nose give and heard a small intake of breath along with the dull crunch of breaking cartilage. Blood started pouring down his face, quickly, in thin, red rivulets. The slope of his nose now appeared a little curved, interrupting the symmetry in his face.

Will looked up at him with dark eyes, pupils impossibly dilated, overflowing his irises. His face looked different in a way Hannibal couldn’t explain, and when he glanced away, he could see the way Will’s features were in constant motion, stable only when his gaze focused on them. 

Following the hot pulse of instinct and desire, Hannibal leaned in to kiss the blood off of Will’s ever-shifting lips. He was so enthralled with the act itself that he barely tasted it. Still sucking on Will’s lower lip, he shoved deeper into him with one hard thrust, making Will’s mouth drop open with a whimper-like breath. After that, Hannibal discarded all notions of holding back. He no longer wanted to, even if he could. He felt a little dazed by it all, being allowed and uninhibited, leash lengthened, perilously close to entirely absent. 

“Hannibal,” Will said, voice wavering on every syllable from the way Hannibal’s thrusts rocked him, “please, fuck, Hannibal—”

“Anything,” Hannibal said, panting, struggling to get any words out at all, “what do you want?”

“Want you to come,” Will ground out. “I want to feel it when I get inside you, dripping down my thighs when I fuck you.” He fumbled for Hannibal’s hand, still tingling warm from slapping him, and brought it between their bodies until it arched over his cock. “You feel that? How hard I am? It’s just for you. You’ll be so good, fuck, I’ll be so good, I’ll be so good to you.”

Hannibal squeezed his eyes shut and held Will tighter. Strong hands came around to grip his shoulders and a heel dug into the small of his back. Will’s moans came in time with their rhythmically slapping skin, little _ah-ah-ah_ -noises that were almost all breath, little sound. Hannibal’s world narrowed down to these things as he felt his pleasure building. There was only skin and breath and the dark behind his eyelids. Will’s smell, Will’s taste. His blood pressed against the roof of Hannibal’s mouth.

With a helpless groan and an erratic jerk of his hips, Hannibal finally came. Like when they’d kissed before, there was the sense of falling and falling and falling, the taste of asphalt and earth. A flashing image of black feathers, a wide wing at an unnatural angle. An over-saturated blue.

Hannibal slowly opened his eyes, feeling dizzy with his orgasm in a way he never usually did. He felt tired enough to collapse, yet when Will’s hand moved behind him and his finger pushed against his hole, he followed the touch intuitively. He considered asking Will to wait, to give him a moment, but he didn’t actually want to stop. It was supposed to be overwhelming, he thought, supposed to be all too much at once.

“That’s right,” Will said, as though he was reading Hannibal’s mind. Then he grasped for the lube, coated his fingers with it and reached back again, slowly working a finger inside him.

“You fucked me open so good,” Will said and clenched around Hannibal’s cock, as though either of them needed the reminder. Hannibal groaned, feeling weak with oversensitivity. “I can’t wait to feel you from the inside. You’re so beautiful everywhere.”

Hannibal released a trembling breath. His hips bucked on their own accord when the pads of two fingers grazed his prostate, making his still half-hard cock slide deeper inside the slick heat of Will’s body. He couldn’t recall having an orgasm and not immediately going soft afterwards, but the constant assault of stimulation kept him from flagging. When Will had gotten three fingers inside him, he was hard and aching for it again, even though he wasn’t sure he could come so soon again. He didn’t really care. Will was more fascinating than the sum of his own body’s idiosyncrasies.

“Don’t hold back,” Hannibal said, voice thick and rough. “I won’t break either. I want as much of you as you’ll give me.”

“You’re a lot more breakable than I am.” A smile was hidden in Will’s voice.

“Pain doesn’t concern me.”

“It concerns me.” Will put a hand on Hannibal’s face and looked at him, suddenly a little unsure, a slight waver in his expression. “I don’t want to hurt you. You have to tell me if I do, okay?”

Hannibal nodded, though he couldn’t imagine telling Will to stop doing anything to him at that moment. Will let his fingers slip out slowly, then he maneuvered Hannibal onto his back. No longer feeling the heat of Will’s body around him struck Hannibal as a significant loss. But then Will drew him closer and started pushing inside him, and there was a remarkable split second where Hannibal imagined he could physically feel the wires crossing in his brain as his body struggled to register the new onslaught of pleasure. It was diluted with pain, a burning, stretching ache, and he was so full he felt like there was no room for anything else anywhere in him.

“Okay?” Will asked, following the line of Hannibal’s pinched eyebrows with his fingers. Hannibal nodded. He hadn’t lied when he said pain didn’t truly bother him. Not at that moment, not under these circumstances. Not with Will.

“Don’t stop,” he said, and Will didn’t. The first roll of his hips made Hannibal’s jaw clench around a moan, but then he did it again and again and Hannibal couldn’t keep quiet. The pain dulled and pleasure unfolded like a gift in his belly, white-hot and demanding. Generally speaking, Hannibal tried to carry himself with a measure of grace and dignity, but now his arms were haphazardly thrown out, legs spread wide to accommodate the width of Will’s body. He felt like a well-read book, falling open at the lightest touch. And it didn’t matter. And it did.

“More,” Hannibal said. “You aren’t hurting me. I’m not afraid.”

“You sure?” Thinly veiled hope and anticipation laced Will’s voice. Hannibal saw himself mirrored and found the reflection deeply touching. He wrapped his arms around Will and slid a hand into his hair, which was warm and damp with sweat.

“Yes,” he said, “I told you I want as much as you’ll give me. Please, Will.”

Will’s fingers dug into his skin as he snapped his hips quicker, more forcefully, face tucked into Hannibal’s neck. There was a desperation there that Hannibal found curious, something raw and pulsing and untethered, like a heart on a surgical tray. Will was moaning, but all Hannibal could do was gasp, crushed in the tight snare of Will’s arms. He thought about the marks he’d bear, the pink, suture-like groves of Will’s fingernails on his shoulders, the blue-purple-yellow bruising from the way he cut himself on the sharp edges of Will’s body. Already he could imagine the ache he’d feel in Will’s absence, in more ways than one. 

“Oh,” Will panted, “Oh, oh, fuck, Hannibal—”

“Yes,” Hannibal said, and in his head: Will, Will, Will. He said it out loud too, wondering absently if it meant anything at all, but of course it did. It was the name he knew him by, and that meant everything. 

When Will’s hips stuttered and he finally came, it was a huge thing that involved his entire body. He shuddered from head to toe, the hair on his arms standing on end and his cock twitching again and again. His mouth hung open and his jaw trembled with the wavering moans he let out. Once he slumped against Hannibal, drained and boneless, he sought out Hannibal's mouth and kissed him, hard and insistent, like even after that, he hadn’t had enough.

Hannibal cupped Will’s face in his hands and gave into his wet, sucking kisses until that desperate edge had dulled from them. Then he steered him away, gently, and looked over his face. Blood had smeared over it, not quite covering the fading red on his cheek from where he’d been slapped. Hannibal couldn’t help but smile. 

“Will you stay the night?” 

Will sucked his lower lip between his teeth, gaze flitting over Hannibal’s face. “Okay,” he said after a moment’s consideration. Then he ducked and smiled, almost sheepish. “We need a shower before we sleep though, I think.”

“Of course,” Hannibal said and flicked his gaze between Will’s nose and his neck. “I believe you require some medical attention too.”

Will untangled their arms and legs and Hannibal sat up straighter, already feeling a dull ache inside him when he shifted and an expected wetness between his legs. He privately relished it as he stood up and gestured for Will to follow him through the bedroom to his bathroom.

“An adjoining bathroom,” Will said, eyebrows raised, smiling faintly. He got down on his knees and felt around the tiled floor under the sink. He emerged grinning a few seconds later, holding out Hannibal’s missing cufflinks. 

“I was right,” he said, teasingly triumphant.

“I never doubted you,” Hannibal said.

Will’s eyes softened. “You never really did, huh?” he opened the sink cabinet and put the cufflinks there. “Can I shower with you?”

“I’d like to look over your nose first, and assess the damage on your neck.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Will waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll all be healed soon.”

Hannibal frowned. Will only stepped into the shower and twisted the knobs until he was satisfied with the pressure and temperature, then he washed his face. Once Hannibal stepped inside, he was amazed to find Will’s skin as unblemished and pale as it had been when he first saw him, and his nose was even once again.

“Is it painful?” Hannibal asked. “When you heal.”

Will shrugged. “It’s like growing pains for a little while, then it’s all over.”

“Remarkable.” 

Hannibal lathered up his hands with soap and started cleaning Will’s body methodically: the length of his arms, his chest and stomach and tapered waist, the slope of his back. He slid his hands, gently, between his cheeks, and then between his thighs, cradling his balls and stroking the foreskin back. It felt almost as viscerally intimate as being inside him, cleaning all the hidden parts of him. His cock was soft and heavy in his hands, filling out slightly with his touch. The skin between his cheeks was still so warm. Finally, Hannibal got down on his knees on the hard tiles, head bent as if in supplication while he soaped up Will’s legs. 

Will was blushing by the end of it. He wordlessly reached for the soap and gave Hannibal a similar treatment, touch too soft, like he was indeed afraid that Hannibal would shatter in his hands. He dragged the soap over Hannibal’s chest and traced patterns in the lathered up hair there, smiling. 

“Your body’s very beautiful.”

“So is yours.”

“Mine requires no real maintenance, unlike yours,” Will reminded him, pointedly wiggling his nose. “I’m more of an Etch A Sketch than meat and bone.”

Hannibal found great promise in the metaphor. “You make a beautiful canvas.”

After their shower, Hannibal changed the sheets and offered Will a set of pajamas from his wardrobe. It didn’t fit him perfectly, too large in some areas and too small in others, but Hannibal was still pleased to see Will in his things. He offered him slippers and a robe too before he went to the kitchen to make tea. Will sat down by the kitchen table, watching Hannibal choose between mugs.

“Do all strange men who come to your house and fuck you in the middle of the night get chamomile tea and slippers?” Will asked. “This place is like a hotel.”

“It would be a hotel with a peculiar set of services, indeed.” Hannibal gave Will a playfully reproachful look for his language. Then he poured the water, steeped the tea and brought their mugs to the table, taking a seat opposite to Will. 

“If you recall,” Hannibal continued, “I have had few sexual partners. I’m unsure of social protocol, but hospitality could never hurt.”

“I’m not complaining.” 

Will held the mug between his hands and squinted at it, as though he were concentrating. Hannibal saw the steam evade and a pleased smile curling around Will’s mouth as he raised the cup to sip from it. 

“You weren’t always so concerned with manners and decorum and hospitality,” Will pointed out. “Not that you were ever impolite. But it is increasingly annoying to you as you grow older. Rudeness.”

“Aging is in many ways a consolidation of lifelong beliefs,” Hannibal said. “We go through life trudging up a path and then we tend to stick to it. Because it was the only path available to us at the time, or because we liked it to begin with. Or because we’ve since made it our own.” 

“How would you categorize your path towards killing and eating rude people?” Will asked. Then he smiled and shook his head. “Nature, nurture. Not an ideal time to have that conversation now, is it? We’d be up all night.”

Hannibal smiled. The idea of being recognized and accepted still sent little sparks of excitement through him. 

“I wouldn’t care to discuss it either way. I’ve never considered the specifics of why I do what I do to be relevant. I simply dislike how impolite people make me feel.”

“How do they make you feel?”

Hannibal paused. “Foolish,” he said, and meant to say something more, but when he truly thought about it, that was the essence of it. 

Will tilted his head slightly to the side. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way at any point tonight. I’ve been plenty rude.”

Hannibal shook his head. “I don’t dislike how you make me feel.”

“How’s that?”

Hannibal pondered it for a moment. It reminded him of family, and the concept of unconditional love. But he had never put his own family’s love for him to the test at all. He had only been a boy when he knew them and as far as they were aware, there had been nothing unusual about him apart from his intelligence. 

“I don’t have a word for it,” he admitted. “Perhaps it’s too alien a concept to me.”

Something flickered by on Will’s face. Hannibal couldn’t say for certain what it was, but he had a sneaking suspicion that there was something that Will was keeping from him, something important he had chosen not to disclose. Hannibal studied his face carefully. What he saw in Will’s face could be mistaken for pity, with his creased brow and soft eyes, but it wasn’t. It was closer to yearning, the open look he’d had when Hannibal was inside him, when they’d kissed after coming together and parting and coming together again.

“You knew me before I knew you,” Hannibal said, knowing it to be true intuitively. 

Will held his gaze for a moment before looking down. He squeezed his hands around his mug, the lilac of his fingertips turning white with the strength in his grip. Finally, he nodded.

Hannibal tipped his head to the side. “How long?”

“Since—since the orphanage. You were so angry. All the time. It was impossible not to hear you.” Will glanced up again. “I used to hold you at night. I used to tell you stories when you slept.”

Hannibal made a mental note to revisit some of those dusty halls of his memory palace, because presently, he had no recollection at all of any such thing. He believed Will, but the idea that he didn’t remember and perhaps never would left him feeling a little disappointed. 

He wondered if his nightmares had fled at the sound of Will’s voice, if he had stirred in the cradle of those strong arms while his frown slowly melted off his face. He tried to imagine what Will would have considered appropriate to tell a desperately unhappy child such as himself, and came to the conclusion that not much would have been different. To a creature as old as Will, Hannibal was likely still painfully young.

“I have felt a presence with me always,” Hannibal said. “I assumed it was God.”

“God hasn’t abandoned you,” Will said. “I just—happened to hear you, once. Then it was hard to let go.” He smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “I have a habit of picking up strays.”

“There are certainly plenty of those in this world. Stray sheep, wandering lost. If the good Lord is the shepherd, are you the wolf?”

“I guess that depends on who you ask.”

The words fell into the silence. Will raised his mug as though he might drink from it, but then he put it back down again.

“I love you like you’re my own,” he said, voice tight, face tighter. “You’re God’s creation, but I feel like you’re mine.”

“Did you shape me to be this way?”

“No, no, I—humans have free will, I did nothing.” Will released a deep breath and his facial features relaxed. “It wasn’t an Adam and Eve sort of thing. I didn’t whisper salacious propositions in your ear or anything like that. It’s like I said, I always have to be somewhere. I’m glad I was there when you needed it.”

Hannibal nodded. He smiled at Will, who gave him a twitchy, somewhat surprised smile in return.

“Thank you,” Hannibal said. “You were kind to help me when God’s grace couldn’t reach me. What will you do with me? Now that I’m off the godly path. What of your other stray sheep?”

“They have been few and far in between. Mortal lives are short.”

“Can’t they spend their eternal lives with you?”

“I want them to be with God. They’re good people. They deserve mindless bliss, not the tedious ennui of wandering the earth with me.”

Hannibal contemplated the implications of what Will was saying for a moment. If he understood him correctly, it was, essentially, the possibility of eternal life. He already felt as though he had lived through several lifetimes, and despite his many negative experiences, he was still enamored with them all and with the possibilities that lay ahead.

“Do I get a say in what happens in my afterlife?”

Will opened his mouth, then he closed it and shook his head, at the situation rather than as an answer. “Everyone deserve relief. I wouldn’t wish eternal damnation on anyone.”

“I am not you,” Hannibal said. “I would be making my decision on wildly different grounds.” He took Will’s hands in his own, squeezing them gently with a small smile. “We needn’t decide anything at all this very moment. First thing’s first: you will stay the night.”

“Yes,” Will agreed.

“I presume that you will leave at some point after that.”

“I’ll have to.”

“I understand.” Hannibal let go of Will’s hands to stroke his cheek, cupping his hand over the coarse stubble and soft skin there. “Will I see you again before my time has come?”

Will pressed into his touch, eyelids fluttering closed. He nodded and turned his face to kiss Hannibal’s palm. 

“Anytime you want. I’ll hear you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to end the fic here, but since I'm trash I couldn't help but write a smutty continuation. So uhh check the tags if you want to know what's coming in chapter 2. More of my Hannigram stuff can be found on my [tumblr](http://beatricenius.tumblr.com/) and my [twitter](https://twitter.com/beatricenius)


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